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Overheard at Senior Homes
I teach writing and printmaking classes at senior homes in Los Angeles. Over the years, I’ve kept a journal of the memorable things I’ve seen and heard.
Once, while I was in the men’s room, an octogenarian approached me as I stood over a urinal. He took off his shirt and pointed to an open sore on his back. He asked, “Does this look infected to you?”
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A woman from a senior home in Hollywood was upset the hallway carpets were being replaced. The executive director told the woman she should be happy since the old carpets were stained from residents soiling themselves. The woman had vision problems due to macular degeneration and said she used the dirty carpets as a navigation tool. “I’m four stains from the elevator. Now I’ll never find my room again.”
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I encountered my 10th grade biology teacher Mr. Wasserman at a senior home in Burbank. He had Alzheimer’s disease and didn’t remember me. In his teaching days, he responded to dumb questions from students by answering with a non-sequitur saying, “Why is a nail?” At the senior home I said to him, “Why is a nail, Mr. Wasserman?” He turned to me and said, “Were you one of my students?” I told him my name and he smiled through the rest of class.
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A 78-year old woman in one of my printmaking classes suffered a heart attack. She was rushed to the hospital and fortunately survived. That night, I looked at the block print she was carving. It was an image of a woman surrounded by angels. The text beneath the print read, “Time to go home.”
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She was a movie star in the 1970’s. When I lived in Laurel Canyon, I often saw her walking her dog on Mulholland Drive. We waved to each other though we never had a conversation. Now she lived in a senior home and I was her art teacher. I asked her why she no longer lived at home.
“I had several falls. Then I got lost one day and forgot where I lived. My daughter made me move here. She took over my house and now I’m living in Hotel California.”
“What do you mean,” I asked.
“You know, ‘you can check out any time you like but you can never leave.’”
